The Bookends Guide to the SBL format, created and maintained by Danny Zacharias, includes Bookends formatting files that conform to the SBL Handbook of Style (Hendrickson, 1999) and a PDF guide that details how users need to configure Bookends fields to accommodate SBL formatting.

Danny's description looks very promising to me. BUT there is a little problem. His package does contain 4 files (3 formatting files + a pdf with instructions). The instructions say that he delivers a preference file + the .plist so that his preference customizations must not be made manually. Both files are missing. Could someone please help me out. The formattings look really promising for my needs. It would be a pity to make the long list of customizations just for testing the formattings.

One of our users has kindly provided me with a copy of the SBL format the works with Bookends 12. I've uploaded this to our ftp site. Bookends 11 and earlier users should use the version linked to above.

Jon wrote:Juan Carlos Ossandón has updated the SBL format to the second edition (2014) of their Handbook of Style, and has kindly submitted it for anyone to use. It can be obtained from our anonymous ftp site

Thanks, Jon. The preferences setting you mentioned was/is set for "smart quotes" and has "English" selected. I have the desired quote marks in other formats.

In my "Formats" for the SBL Second Edition, the Bibliography field order looks like this:
a, «t.» $$ j v$/$i` `(d): p–.

The result looks like this:
Nicholson, Nigel, «Cultural Studies, Oral Tradition, and the Promise of Intertextuality.» American Journal of Philology 134/1 (2013): 9–21.

Should be:
Nicholson, Nigel, "Cultural Studies, Oral Tradition, and the Promise of Intertextuality." American Journal of Philology 134/1 (2013): 9–21.

If I change the appropriate characters for the quotation to the English language version by modifying the characters in the format manager, it then shows correctly. That is why I was wondering if the format created for the SBL Second Edition had been created with the different style quotation marks.